An Evil Will Dies Not
by Argonaut57
Summary: When Hermione Granger follows a tip from an unexpected source to a dark ritual beneath the Shrieking Shack, it seems that the Dark Lord is reaching out from beyond the grave yet again.


**An Evil Will Dies Not**

**One**

_The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated. _

_ - Borellus_

Hermione missed Ron. She missed Harry as well, of course, but not as much as she did Ron. But then she was in love with Ron, which she thought would come as a shock to everyone, but actually shocked no-one. Even her mother had passed off the announcement with "Well of course you are, dear! If you hadn't been, you'd have talked about him more, and blushed less when you did."

Ron had, of course, been fully supportive of her decision to come back to Hogwarts and finish her NEWTS. Kingsley had offered to hire them all as Aurors on the spot, and Harry had accepted immediately, as had Neville. Ron had demurred, for the same reason that he had also refused to return to school.

"I've got to help George get the business back on its feet." He'd told her. "I owe it to Fred, if nothing else!"

"You owe yourself your NEWTs!" Hermione had tried to insist, but Ron had just laughed aloud and taken her in his arms.

"What chance have I got of getting decent NEWTs?" He'd asked her. "I only got decent OWLs because of you, love. Everything the teachers try to tell me goes in at one ear and comes out of the other, but everything you tell me, I remember. Right back to _Wingardium Leviosa_!"

Hermione had sighed. During the previous year, and their hunt for Horcruxes, she had on several occasions been obliged to revise her assessment of Ron's abilities upwards. She had always loved him, she now acknowledged, but she had never gained a true appreciation of his courage, his leadership, his compassion and above all, his intelligence, which she now realised was quite equal to hers. But, she had to accept, Ron was not an academic. He belonged out in the world, not in a Library!

It was hard to be without him, though, having been almost constantly in his company for so many years. But he wrote every day - usually short but comical little notes and the occasional slightly rude limerick – and he visited at weekends. Hermione had tacit permission from Headmistress McGonagall to do pretty much as she pleased when Ron was about, as long as she behaved properly in classes and got her homework done!

Just at this moment, however, Hermione missed both Ron and Harry more than usual. Something was up! Hermione wasn't the only student staying on an extra year as a result of the war. Snape's tenure as Headmaster had, due to the influence of the Carrows and the late but unlamented Lord Voldemort, disrupted the Ministry-approved curriculum, especially for those students due to take OWLs or NEWTs the previous year. So there were quite a few familiar faces still about.

One of those faces was Draco Malfoy, although he kept himself very much to himself, these days. Hermione noted that his one-time constant companion, Pansy Parkinson, had left, and that Draco was spending a lot of his spare time with a rather pretty Slytherin girl called Astoria Greengrass. Among others staying on were Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode, and it was this pair that currently concerned Hermione.

Yesterday, Astoria had brushed against Hermione in the corridor, causing her to drop her bag. Before Hermione could react, the Slytherin girl had picked it up and handed it back to her with a polite apology and a meaningful glance at the now-open top of the bag. Hermione had investigated further, finding a slip of parchment on which was written, in Draco's slanting hand _What are Zabini and Bulstrode up to in the Shrieking Shack?_ Hermione had glanced up from the note to meet Draco's eye as he waited outside a classroom. He gave her a single curt nod, then turned away.

So now, Hermione was making her way by moonlight to the Whomping Willow. She had seen Zabini and Bulstrode slip away earlier, in the direction of Hogsmeade. Obviously, they were not privy, as Hermione was, to the short-cut that led directly from the school grounds to the Shrieking Shack. Crookshanks slipped ahead of her and pushed against the knot that paralysed the Willow, then led her down the passage.

The Shack was more or less as Hermione remembered it, except that Snape's body had, of course, been removed. However, there was a trap-door in the middle of the floor which she had not known was there. It was open now, revealing a flight of stone steps A flickering light came out of it, and a rhythmic sound of drums. Hermione crept down, silently , until the steps turned a corner onto a landing which presented her with a full view of what was below.

It was a large, rock-hewn chamber, lit by flickering torches around the walls, and a fire in the altar in the centre. There were decorations and statues around the walls that Hermione knew she should study, but her attention was taken by what was going on around the altar. She barely needed the hasty Disillusionment Charm she cast, as the crowd below her were all fixated on the altar. Every member of the audience, or congregation, wore black robes with hoods that hid their features, except for the two people on a raised platform before the altar.

These two were Blaise Zabini and Millicent Bulstrode, and both were quite naked. Blaise lay on his back, Millicent straddling him, and their bodies moved rhythmically to the beat of the small drums many of the congregation were playing. The sweat-streaked skins of the couple attested to a good deal of previous exertion, yet they seemed full of vigour as they performed.

_How odd!_ Hermione reflected. Her first thought was that this was some kind of mildly kinky entertainment, in the same vein, but rather more extreme, as the striptease she herself had once performed for Ron. But then that didn't seem right. Zabini was undoubtedly handsome enough, and his body was slim and athletic, but Millicent was no potential porn star. Admittedly, seen without her clothes, she was no longer the dumpy girl who had bullied Hermione. Her body was in fact trim and muscular, with a definite waist, wide hips and shoulders, and large but firm breasts. Her face, Hermione realised, was strong featured - handsome rather than pretty – and had only seemed ugly due to a perpetual scowl. She was not scowling now, though, and the sounds she was making indicated intensely pleasurable sensations. Still, Hermione got the distinct impression that this was not a show.

Hermione shook her head, and looked more closely at the altar the couple were performing in front of. There was a large bowl, currently filled with fire, behind which squatted a rough-hewn statue. The statue made Hermione shudder, the figure it depicted was grossly fat, with globular breasts. It squatted with thighs far apart to reveal a gaping vulva. The thing was acephalous – the head had not been broken off or removed, it had simply never had one. It was some kind of gross perversion of the ancient Mother Goddess, Hermione realised, the dark _Magna Mater_ to whom unspeakable rites had been performed by half-apes before true humans had walked the Earth.

Between the statue's feet, as if ejected from that stone womb, was a smaller statue, about a foot high. This was not rough, but of exquisite workmanship, but Hermione could not make out any details except that it seemed to be a seated figure.

Then the drumbeats changed as Millicent gave a shriek and her body convulsed in what was clearly an orgasm. _I always assumed she was a lesbian,_ Hermione thought, _how silly of me! _She watched in involuntary fascination as Millicent pulled herself off Zabini, who was still clearly erect. The couple changed position, Millicent now on hands and knees as Zabini knelt behind her. Millicent cried out again as he penetrated her once more. The drumbeats became frantic and Zabini matched their rhythm with hard, deep thrusts until Millicent screamed again and he gave a wordless shout of triumph. The couple collapsed, trembling and gasping, the drums ceased and the audience broke into a chorused prayer or ritual:

"Oh, friend and companion of night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood, who wanderest in the midst of shades among tombs, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals, Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favourably on our sacrifices!"

Four robed figures now came forward, and as the couple on the platform climbed to their feet, they covered them in robes of green cloth with a silver filigree pattern woven in – Slytherin colours, Hermione noted. The robes didn't fasten at all, but hung open, revealing as much as they concealed. The rest of the congregation now pushed back their hoods. Hermione scanned them, looking for familiar faces, but saw nobody except a couple of people she vaguely recalled seeing in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade.

Now Zabini addressed the congregation. "The Binding is complete!" He announced. "Bound in an act of love between two who hate each other, the Dark Forces of Earth will now serve our Dark Lord on His return. _Ia! Shub-Niggurath_! It is done!"

Millicent now spoke: "Three nights from now, at the Black Lake in the Dark Forest, we will Bind the Dark Forces of Water, and with these two powers, our Master will be restored."

"What of Fire and Air?" Asked an elderly woman who Hermione could have sworn she'd seen coming out of Knockturn Alley once.

"Those spirits will not be Bound." Zabini replied. "They obey none but their own Will, but it may be the Dark Lord can persuade them to be His allies."

"Now, return to your homes!" Millicent commanded. "Be at the Black Lake three nights hence, and do not fail our Lord!"

Hermione, always quick on the uptake, used the booms of multiple Disapparations to cover a hasty retreat, and was in a position to eavesdrop as Zabini and Millicent re-entered the Castle through a little-used side entrance.

"At least Filch kept his word!" Millicent remarked as they slipped in.

"For that much gold, he'd better have!" Snapped Zabini. "Getting into the Forest will be harder. There aren't enough Galleons in Gringotts to bribe that clod, Hagrid!

"You did take precautions tonight, Bulstrode?"

"Too bloody right!" She replied grimly. "What we did tonight was necessary, Zabini, and at least you can manage a decent fuck. But you're an arrogant shit, and I'll not bear your bastard!"

Zabini gave a short laugh. "You were better than I imagined you would be! You certainly look better with your clothes off than I thought you would. Funny how much you can enjoy screwing somebody you don't like! Wonder why?"

"Go see a Muggle psychiatrist if you're that bothered about it!" She told him. "Are the salts ready?"

"Almost." He replied. "I'll finish that part tomorrow. We're lucky that idiot Goyle didn't destroy the Room!"

"Fine." She acknowledged. "Well, I'm off to wash your smell off me and then go to bed!"

"Well excuse me for not being Neville Longbottom!" He taunted.

The look she threw him chilled Hermione to the bone. "I'm going to kill you one day, Zabini." She said flatly. "Make no mistake about that. But you shouldn't give me too many reasons to make your death more painful than it'll already be. You don't have the right to even say Neville's name to me, got that?"

"I may just kill you first, Bulstrode." He returned in the same even tone. "Bear that in mind!"

"So," Hermione said to Ginny the next morning at breakfast, "we need to find out what that pair of psychopaths are up to by Sunday night at the latest!"

"Hmm," Ginny replied, "which means we'd better have something to go on by tonight, really. The lads are coming up tomorrow, anyway, but if we're to involve Harry, he's got to have evidence these days. Or at least, what does he call it, probable cause?"

"True, but at least if something is going on, he can actually deal with it officially now, rather than having to convince a teacher or three!" Hermione pointed out. "Speaking of the boys, here comes the post!"

There was Pigwidgeon, making for Hermione like a small feathered bullet, whilst behind him, at a more dignified pace, came Harry's new bird, an uncommonly large and intelligent raven he called Quoth. Harry had only had the creature since Easter, but Hermione noticed that the other owls, even Malfoy's Eagle owl, gave the raven a wide berth. Bad news like Quoth got around fast!

Pigwidgeon had improved a good deal, managing to touch down next to Hermione's bowl rather than in her muesli. She cut up a sausage for him and read Ron's note:

_Hiya Sexy!_

_Not a lot to say that I can't tell you tomorrow, so I'll see you then!_

_Love and kisses,_

_Ron_

_(NORWICH)_

Ron always got more saucy towards the weekend, of course. _When he doesn't, _Hermione thought, _it'll mean we've grown old together. It's all good._

Hermione had already written notes to Ron and Harry outlining her discovery of the previous night. Now she waited while Ginny rewarded Quoth with some bacon and added a short note of her own to Harry. The birds dispatched, the two young women considered their next move.

"Funny timetable today." Hermione pointed out. "We've both got first period free this morning, and the last two this afternoon. I'm thinking the Shrieking Shack first, then the Room of Requirement later. If memory serves, Zabini has the period after lunch free, so he'll probably be in there then, and long gone by the time we get there."

"Right, we just need one more person, then!" Ginny said.

"We do?" Hermione was puzzled.

"Yep," Ginny looked over to the Ravenclaw table. "You're the brains, 'Mione, and I'm the brawn, but we need somebody who thinks outside the box for this. Hey, Luna! Got a minute?"

Ginny had finally decided to take Luna Lovegood in hand and Hermione had to admit, she'd done a good job. Luna's unfortunate shade of blonde had always looked dirty, no matter how often she washed it, for instance, but the application of a slight tint had now changed it to a rich honey-blonde. A little skilfully-applied make-up had made Luna's blue eyes look less protuberant, and the radish earrings and cork necklace had been replaced with discreet silver studs and chain. But not the best make-over in the world would ever convince Hermione that Luna was on the same planet as everyone else!

Having said that, it took a very short time for Luna to grasp the nature of Hermione's concern.

"They don't teach sex magic here, of course." The Ravenclaw girl noted. "Too many under-age students, I suppose. Though a lot of sex goes on, obviously, between the older students.

"Sex magic is very powerful, but it takes a lot of time and careful setting up to do properly. There's a place near London that teaches it, but you have to be invited to go there. They teach powerful healing techniques, apparently."

"Whoop-de-do for them!" Ginny said tartly. "Harry and I make all the magic we can handle without any training, thank you very much!"

"Ditto for Ron and I!" Hermione agreed. "But I don't think Bulstrode and Zabini were out to heal anything, Luna!"

"No indeed!" Luna agreed. "So we need to look at that temple place to see what they were actually up to!"

Crookshanks, who had found a good spot for sunbathing, was a touch grumpy abut being pressed into service again, but a cat-treat bribe soon improved his manners. Now Hermione knew where the trap-door was, it was easy to see how she had missed it on her other visits here. Wands lit, the three women made their way down the steps into the cave, where Hermione conjured a floating globe of light that enabled them to study everything.

The wall decorations, they soon discovered, ran the gamut from primitive cave drawings, through Roman mosaics to Renaissance frescoes and even some 1960's psychedelia. They all had common themes, however. One was sex – orgiastic or ritualistic. At least half the images were of the most crudely pornographic nature, depicting people engaging in every variety of sexual encounter. More disturbingly, many of the images showed these activities being shared with beings that were at best semi-human, and at worst wholly unearthly.

The other images were equally horrific, though somehow less disturbing. They showed, in brutal detail, the ritual sacrifice and cannibalistic devouring of humans or humanlike creatures. The victims seemed to be a lesser breed, kept captive and fattened for the slaughter at high seasons. Hermione studied the images of the victims carefully, then gave a little gasp.

"I recognise these!" She said. "I've seen pictures in Muggle books. Those poor creatures are Neanderthals!"

"Neander-whats?" Ginny asked.

"Neanderthals." Hermione repeated. "Back in the Ice Ages, there was more than one species of human, Ginny. There were our ancestors – Cro-Magnons they call them, or _Homo Sapiens_ – and these people – Neanderthals. They were supposed to have died out, but by the look of these images, they were being raised for slaughter by this cult as late as the 17th Century!"

"Exham Priory." Ginny said thoughtfully, "Did you hear about that place, Luna, when you were little?"

"We all did." Luna replied, before explaining to Hermione. "Exham Priory belonged to a family of Muggle nobles who had a terrible reputation for centuries, Hermione. Sometime in the 1600s, one of them killed the rest of the family and went to America. Then in the 1920's, one of their descendants came back to the mansion and started to restore it. He found something there that led him to set up an archaeological expedition. They found a lot of caves under the Priory, and what they found in them sent two of the party insane.

"My father and Mr Weasley went down afterwards, in case there was any magic there. I don't know if Mr Weasley told you anything Ginny, but my father wrote it all down and gave it to me to look at on my last birthday. By the sound of it, what they found was physical evidence of the things in these paintings!"

Hermione shuddered, as did Ginny. "Dad would never talk about that, even to Mum." she said.

They carried on looking. The statues dotted around the walls matched the pictures in most respects, being mainly of priapic Satyrs and voluptuous Nymphs. But there were three that puzzled the explorers immensely. They stood rather apart from the rest, in a small alcove to one side, all carved with great skill in a greyish stone with green veins. They represented creatures - at least, they gave the impression of being creatures rather than things – about nine feet tall, with ridged, barrel-shaped bodies supported by five thick tentacular legs which ended in triangular feet. The heads resembled five-limbed starfish, with eyes at the end of each 'arm'. More tentacles, branching into 'hands', grew from the middle of the bodies, along with batlike wings. Hermione found these annoyingly familiar. She was sure she had seen pictures of things like these, but could not recall where or when.

Finally, the three approached the central altar. The bowl that had held the fire was now cold and empty but the statue still squatted there. Carved into the plinth were the words 'Magna Mater' in Roman letters, and underneath them, a cruder carving of old runes that Hermione read with practised ease. "Shub-Niggurath," she read, "Zabini invoked that name last night. Who or what is Shub-Niggurath?"

"Well, obviously, she's the Magna Mater." Ginny said. "But I thought the Great Mother was Gaia?"

"_Is_ Gaia." Luna told her. "Or Yavanna, to give her an even older name. But everything has a dark side, Ginny. This Magna Mater may be the opposite of Gaia."

"Why hasn't she got a head?" Ginny wanted to know.

"That's easy." Hermione explained. "Cults like this are always anti-thought, anti-intelligence. This type of being feeds off the lowest animal impulses, and the less people think, the more likely they are to give in to those urges. It explains the Sixties stuff in here. A lot of the hippie groups were anti-intellectual, anti-rational types."

"Well, there's bound to be something in the Library about all this." Luna pointed out. "You've got a permanent pass to the Restricted Section, Hermione, haven't you?"

"True." Hermione paused, then said. "The other statue's gone! The small one that was under this one!"

"Maybe they took it with them when they left?" Ginny suggested.

"Maybe," Hermione agreed. "They were both carrying backpacks, and Zabini's looked quite heavy.

"Well, I think that's all there is to see down here, and we've got classes soon. Let's get moving, ladies!"

The girls actually saw Zabini coming away from the Room of Requirement that afternoon. They clustered round and gossiped abut nothing as he strode past. He didn't deign to glance at them – the Mudblood and her blood-traitor friends – but looked, Ginny thought, even more self-satisfied than usual.

When he was gone, they made their way to the familiar stretch of wall, but something was bothering Hermione.

"Ginny," she said, "are you sure you're OK to take this time out? I'm up to date with my homework, and I'll bet Luna is too, but are you? I'm sorry, but you're so much like Ron..."

"And he was always behind with homework?" Ginny giggled. "You need to get used to the Weasley Way, 'Mione! As for me, so what if I drop a mark or two? I've already got two offers from League teams, and they won't care how many NEWTs I do or don't have!"

"Yes, I know," Hermione allowed. "But what happens when you're to old to play any more? Chasers usually retire before they're thirty, Ron told me. You'll need to be able to get a proper job then."

Ginny shrugged. "I'll be married to Harry long before then, and we want kids, so I'll stop before I'm thirty to do that. Between what Harry's folks, and then Sirius, left him, plus the house at Grimmauld Place and the land at Godric's Hollow, money won't be a problem. I'll just have to find something that's fun to do, that's all!"

Hermione left it at that, remembering that Molly Weasley was a stay-at-home Mum, so Ginny probably didn't see a need to have a career as such. Hermione herself, the child of a professional couple, would need a career to give her a sense of her own identity. Ginny, like Ron, already knew who she was!

"OK," Luna interrupted, "I've been asking the Room to take us to where Zabini was, and we've got a door."

It was, without doubt, the best-equipped alchemical lab Hermione had ever seen. Luna immediately began to examine the equipment – her father was an alchemist, so she could probably tell more from the kit than the other two. Ginny scouted around the room, looking at everything. Hermione made a bee-line for the books.

First was a copy of Borellus, with a passage heavily underlined. Hermione frowned, the paragraph spoke about preparing some kind of 'essential salts' from dead bodies in order to revive them in some way. Recalling what Bulstrode and Zabini had said about reviving their Dark Lord, Hermione got a chilly feeling in her gut. _Surely not_ she thought. Then her eye fell on another book, a small, handwritten one. She picked it up, noticing that it wasn't old, and that the handwriting was clear and elegant, if a bit old-fashioned.

_I have learned from my mistakes, _she read, _and must have to hand means to restore a body in case of accident or error. Potter still lives, so I am not safe._

Then suddenly a shadow fell over the page, Ginny gave a little shriek and knocked the book out of her hand.

"What the bloody Hell!" Hermione didn't swear a lot, but felt this occasion merited it.

"That's _His_ writing!" Ginny stormed. "Tom Riddle's – _Voldemorts'!_ How could you be so _dense_, Hermione? D'you want Harry and Ron to end up chasing _you_ down to the Chamber of Secrets?"

"Oh, for Heavens' sake, Ginny, get a grip!" Hermione snapped back. "Harry – and you – told us about that diary, remember? It was blank - the writing only appeared in response to what you or Harry wrote in there. This isn't a Horcrux, Ginny, it's just a notebook!"

Luna had come over, now she stopped and picked the book up. "Hermione's right, Ginny." She said. "Even Lord Voldemort must have needed to write things down sometimes. He was a clever man, and clever people do that, you know."

Ginny looked shamefaced. "Sorry," she murmured, "but I saw that handwriting and just...freaked out a bit. Sorry."

"Don't be." Hermione said kindly. "I'd freak out too, if I'd been through that."

She took the book from Luna and looked through it.

_I will need greater allies,_ one passage went,_ the elements themselves. Hastur and Ithaqa are intransigent, and cannot be commanded. Shub-Niggurath can be bound, so that her Young will serve, but I cannot perform the rite myself, having never felt that desire. The problem is not insurmountable – Bella would give herself to any man at my command. Great Cthulhu remains in his House, but his Spawn, and the Deep Ones, can be summoned if the image be cast into deep water._

"Shub-Niggurath again!" Hermione muttered. "Who's this Cthulhu character? Some kind of water-demon?"

She flicked forward a few pages.

_Potter tasks me, and like the Muggle Ahab, I'll hunt him round the Horn, and round the Norway maelstrom, and round Perdition's flames before I give him up! But the boy has the luck of Satan, and he may yet be my downfall if Dumbledore guesses my secret._

_So I'll make my plans. This book will go to someone I can trust. Not Severus or Bella, who will both fall if I do. Not Lucius, who is a fool and a coward. Madame Zabini will, I think, serve, and her son is a cunning youth. I'll leave him enough that by looking in Borellus and al-Hazred, he'll know what to do, how to make the Salts and bind the elementals. Then I must wait._

"_That is not dead that can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, Death itself may die."_

"God!" Hermione said. "Plans within plans within plans! Did anyone else find anything?"

Luna shrugged. "This equipment and the reagents are for extracting something from something and then refining it."

"Essential salts from dead bodies?" Hermione asked.

"It's possible," Luna allowed. "my father's tried it, but he couldn't make it work."

"What about this?" Ginny asked, showing them a piece of parchment. On it were written two incantations. The first had a plus sign above it and read:

_Y'AI 'NG'NGAH,  
YOG-SOTHOTH  
H'EE-L'GEB  
F'AI THRODOG  
UAAAH_

The other had a minus sign at the top:

_OGTHROD AI'F  
GEB'L-EE'H  
YOG-SOTHOTH  
'NGAH'NG AI'Y  
ZHRO_

"It looks," Ginny said, "sort of like a charm and counter-charm, but I couldn't begin to guess what for!"

"I know that name Yog-Sothoth, as well, from somewhere!" Hermione growled. "I'm getting fed up of half-remembering things!"

"Given the amount you've read over the years, it's a wonder you remember your own name, never mind anyone else's!" Ginny teased her.

"Thanks!" Hermione shot back. "I'm not quite senile yet, Ermintrude! Find anything else?"

"Only this," Ginny pointed to a kind of amphora that stood nearby. "Looks like a Greek urn."

"What's a Greek urn?" Asked Luna.

"About ten Galleons a week." Ginny replied, getting a groan from Hermione and a blank look from Luna.

The jar had no top, and inside was a fine, greenish dust. A parchment label on the side bore the letters 'BL'.

"I can put a name to that," Ginny said, "and a nasty one! Bellatrix Lestrange, maybe?"

"You think these might be those 'essential salts' Borellus talks about?" Hermione asked.

"Could be." Luna said thoughtfully. "Dad managed to make something similar from animal bodies, but he was never able to reconstruct them. Something's missing from Borellus, you know."

"Something else will be missing, as well." Ginny said. "Not many people know where Voldemort and Bellatrix were buried. Kingsley didn't want Death-Eaters or other folk going after souvenirs or making shrines out of the graves. But Harry was on the burial party, so he does know.

"I've got a mirror I can contact him on, so I'm going to ask him to check before he comes up tomorrow. If those bodies are gone, we have to assume the worst!"

They were turning to go, when Luna spotted a backpack casually dumped beside the door, and pointed it out to the others.

"That was the one Zabini was carrying!" Hermione stated, picking it up. "Oof! It is heavy! Let's have a look..."

The statuette was indeed about a foot in height, and clearly the work of a master sculptor. It represented a rather corpulent form, seated on a stone block with its knees drawn up. The feet that gripped the edge of the block were heavily clawed, as were the hands that rested on the knees. A pair of dragonlike wings grew from the shoulders, and the bulbous head that bowed over the knees as if in sleep had, in place of a mouth, a mass of octopus-like tentacles.

"Eww!" Ginny said. "What is that thing?"

"Nothing nice, I'll bet!" Hermione stated, putting the thing back into the pack. "It seems I have an hour or two in the Library ahead of me. We'll catch up after dinner."

It was, Hermione thought, one of the odder consequences of celebrity that she was allowed access to the Restricted Section of the Library without having to fill out a slip. Not that she came in here often. The dark minds that had produced these books had left a shadow in them, and she always felt that something was watching her with malign intent. Strange things had been seen in here as well. Both the Grey Lady and the Bloody Baron were known to frequent this place, and there were stories of dark, indefinite things lurking among the stacks, as well as the fabled orang-utan that was reputed to haunt every magical library. George Weasley claimed to have seen that sagacious creature in here, and Viktor Krum had told Hermione that he himself had seen the beast in the library at Durmstrang. George might have been winding her up, but Viktor had no sense of humour to speak of.

Now, though, she headed to the very back of the section, where the oldest and worst books were kept. Here, nested among volumes of learned speculation and commentary, were the ancient scroll-cases containing the antediluvian Pnakotic Manuscripts, the cryptic _Book of Eibon_, the fragmentary R'lyeh Text and the puzzling Eltdown Shards. Despite her skill in Ancient Runes, most of these works were beyond Hermiones' ability to read, even if she had dared take the fragile parchments out of their cases.

But other books were there that she could read. Her parents, disgusted at the lack of Modern Foreign Language teaching at Hogwarts, had insisted she take correspondence courses in French and German, and every Hogwarts student learned to read in Latin – the language of choice for a good many magical texts. So Hermione had no difficulty in penetrating _Cultes des Goules_ by the Comte d'Erlette, old Ludwig Prinn's _De Vermis Mysteriis_ and the _Unaussprechlichen Kulten_ of von Juntz.

It was in d'Erlette's obscene tome that she found a woodcut of the starfish-headed beings whose statues in the underground temple had so puzzled her. They were referred to as the Elder Things, beings of great wisdom and power, who had colonised Earth in the ages before humanity, but who had committed a great folly in building their chief city too close to the dread Plateau of Leng and the dark influence of Kadath in the Cold Waste.

Here, too, she found a picture of the statuette Zabini had carried, and learned that it was the image of Great Cthulhu, High Priest of another alien race who had filtered down from the stars aeons ago. These beings, the text said, were now trapped in their sunken cities, dead yet not dead, awaiting a realignment of stars to rise again, and attended by a race of frog-like humanoids – the Deep Ones – who maintained the ancient spells that guarded them. There was a strange phrase or prayer: _"Phnglui mglw nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah nagl fhtagn"_ which meant "In His house at R'lyeh Dead Cthulhu waits dreaming." and which Cthulhu's worshippers used to invoke his dream-presence.

But Hermione found what she was looking for in von Juntz's work. He gave a full account of the cult of the Dark Mother, Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat with a Thousand Young, recounting their orgiastic, cannibalistic rites with a grim relish that made Hermione feel faintly sick. She recognised the ritual that she had seen the previous night as one which allowed the celebrants to summon and command the Young of Shub-Niggurath – powerful Dark Earth Elementals who lived only to kill.

Finally, and with a deep breath, Hermione approached the curtained alcove at the back of the section. Here was the one book in all the world she had never wanted to even look at, but she thought of Harry and Ron and how neither of them had ever backed down from fear, and she steeled herself. Drawing back the black curtain, she looked at the lectern and the unimpressive, leather-bound folio that was chained to it. There was no lettering on spine or cover, but none was needed for this, the most infamous book in the world, Olaus Wormius' Latin translation of the _Al-Azif_, the forbidden _Necronomicon_ of the mad Arab, Abdul al-Hazred.

Hermione read quickly but thoroughly, and by the time she had finished, she knew exactly what Zabini and Bulstrode intended, and what had to be done.

She left the Library feeling sick and exhausted, her head spinning, and made her way toward the Gryffindor Common Room. Half-way there, her legs gave out, and she would have collapsed if a pair of slender but strong arms had not gone round her from behind, as a familiar voice spoke in her ear.

"Gods, you're an idiot, Granger!" Draco Malfoy said. "You always were! Reading _that_ book without taking precautions! It could have sent you mad, woman!"

He helped her to a nearby bench and sat her down. "Drink this!" He told her, holding a silver flask to her lips. It was Firewhisky, which Hermione didn't like, but the warmth of it steadied her a little. Draco turned his head and spoke to someone behind him: "Astoria, love, go and get the Weasley girl, will you?"

"Of course, darling."

As Astoria dashed off, Draco examined Hermione more closely.

"Your colour's coming back," he noted. "Tell me your name?"

"Hermione Jean Granger." She mumbled, and Draco sighed with relief.

"Still sane." He decided. "Well, as sane as any woman can be who's seeing Ron Weasley!"

"About as sane as Astoria then?" She asked.

Draco gave a crooked grin. "That's the Granger I know and loathe!" He responded. "When Ginevra gets here you can go back to your Common Room and have a cup of coffee or something. A lie down and a good meal, and you'll be as right as rain.

"It's a good job I owe Potter and Weasley a couple, or I'd not have bothered keeping an eye on you, Granger! Don't bother thanking me, you're probably feeling sick enough as it is." He glanced along the corridor and gave another crooked grin.

"But soft you now," he announced, "the fair Ginevra! Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered!"

"Fuck off, Malfoy." Ginny replied, more out of habit than anything else. "Is Hermione all right?"

"As well as can be expected, considering she tried to read the _Necronomicon_ without any countercharms." Draco replied. "Fortunately, she's tougher than she looks – stabbing a Horcrux will do that for you. Ginevra, if you're going to insist on having Muggle-born friends, you should at least tell them what they need to know!"

Hermione looked up at Draco. "You didn't say 'Mudblood'." She murmured.

Draco shrugged. "Astoria doesn't like the term, and I'm inclined to think she's right. After the events of last year, your kind have proved your worth, I think. You in particular, Granger."

As Ginny helped her to her feet, Hermione couldn't help smiling. "Coming from you, Draco, that's practically a proposal!"

He gave a faint smile. "Maybe another time, Hermione. But we'd probably never agree on the curtains!"


End file.
